Polluters’ Friend Stalls on Protecting Public Water Supplies

Trump’s New EPA Administrator Delays Efforts to Regulate Deadly PFAS in Drinking Water

By Sarah Okeson

Andrew Wheeler, the former lobbyist now in charge of protecting our nation from dangerous chemicals, would get final say on whether the EPA should regulate a dangerous class of chemicals that are sometimes found in public drinking water.

Under Wheeler, the EPA announced that it would propose a “regulatory determination” for two types of PFAS chemicals, a move environmentalists derided as just more procrastination about deciding whether to regulate the toxic chemicals.

Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and the White House tried to block the release of a health study about PFAS chemicals last year. The report recommended that “minimum risk level” for exposure to two PFAS chemicals should be seven to 10 times lower than the level previously recommended by the EPA.